Health-Related Incident at IDEA High Not TB, District and County Say

The Innovation, Design Entrepreneurship Academy (or IDEA) at Fannin (photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons).

After what the district is terming a “health incident” at the Innovation, Design, Entrepreneurship Academy (or IDEA) at James Fannin on Friday, miscommunications seemed to be rife as more than one person reached out to say that a student at the school had full-blown tuberculosis.

IDEA is high school housed in the former James Fannin Elementary building. It offers personalized learning, combined with mentorship and restorative discipline practices. It began in the 2015-2016 school year with ninth graders, and added a grade level each year. Its first graduating class will be next year.

Tuberculosis is spread through the air from person to person when an infected person coughs, sneezes, laughs “or anything else that causes germs to become airborne,” the Dallas County Health and Human Services Department FAQ sheet explains. “TB is not spread by casual contact such as shaking or holding someone’s hand, hugging, kissing, sharing food or drink or sharing items with another person.”

Sources told CandysDirt.com that a student had coughed up blood on Friday, and was hospitalized over the weekend. By Monday morning, some had heard the student had been diagnosed with tuberculosis.

However, Dallas ISD news and information director Robyn Harris said that while there was a health incident at the school, the student was not actually diagnosed with tuberculosis.

“The student has not tested positive for TB,” Harris said. “I understand that Dallas County Health and Human Services confirmed that it was not a TB case.”

Harris said that much of the activity surrounding the student happened over the weekend, when the student was hospitalized. Any lag in information going to parents and teachers, she said, was likely due to the timing.

“Some of that boils down to what information the campus is made aware of, and in cases like this, the health department is involved, too,” she said, adding that the district’s health services department was also involved in the response.

Harris said that the school should be sending home a note with students this afternoon.

“There’s been a communication explaining everything that will be pushed out to parents,” she said. “I believe the school should be getting it in time to send it out before the end of the school day.”

Full-blown, symptomatic cases of TB are fairly rare in the U.S. The Centers for Disease Control said that in 2016, there were 9,272 cases in the entire country — a rate of 2.9 cases per 100,000 people.

According to the Mayo Clinic, a variety of illnesses can cause someone to cough up blood, including pneumonia, parasitic infections, and a foreign body in the lung.